This week, we dropped a new ‘Ask a Pro Photographer‘ article at Scuba Diving Magazine. This one looks at some of my favorite tips for capturing awesome photos of those beautiful winged giants – manta rays! This one covers a bunch of my best tips to help you get even better shots, including a look at manta behavior and how we can utilize it to capture beautiful photos.  So go check it out and let me know what you think!

You can read the article for free on the Scuba Diving Magazine website here.

Get ready! This past week, I finished up my first article for Outside Magazine. The article is aimed at helping you get started with taking photos of the Milky Way and the night sky. I cover everything from gear to finding the right spots, picking the perfect nights, and even an intro to camera settings. It’s basically a mini crash for nightscape photography, so you can get out there and start chasing stars right away.

I’m super stoked to be working with Outside! We have a few more articles in the works that will be coming out over the next few months, too. So keep an eye out for them here and in my Instagram stories

You can check out the article on the Outside Magazine website here. Give it a read and let me know what you think!

This year has been a wild ride! I’m incredibly grateful for the work and support, but have been so swamped with projects that, unfortunately, I’ve neglected my blog for most of the year. As we move into the new year, I’ll be dedicating a bit more time to getting back to working on this site. I also have some really awesome new ideas in the works that will launch, including a new online photography tutoring platform with one-on-one classes, which will launch in the spring. Followed by an online store coming in early summer, where you’ll be able to purchase limited edition fine art photo prints of some of my more artistic works. But before we dive into 2025, let’s take a look at some of what 2024 entailed.

This year was packed with travel, but so worth it! There are so many new bylines that I need to add to the site as soon as I have a chance. This year, my photos appeared in National Geographic, Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Afar, USA Today, Digital Camera Magazine, and many more. It was also amazing to see the IUCN use some of the shots I donated in their Sharks & Rays report, as well as my friends at Manta Trust utilizing some of my images.  I honestly love being able to use photography to support science and conservation. Being able to learn from these brilliant and passionate humans while capturing the incredible hard work they do and telling their story is something truly special for me. So if you or someone you know in the research or conservation space could use some epic images, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I try to fit in at least a couple of pro bono projects each year for research or conservation initiatives.

One of my favorite accomplishments of the year was receiving a PhotoPills award for one of my Milky Way night-scape images, taken at White Pocket in Vermillion Cliffs National Monument this autumn. The award resulted in my image being published in their annual Legacy book, which contains a wealth of highly talented and inspiring photographers from around the world. Getting back to work, though, a large chunk of this year was spent on brand shoots.  I’m incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to shoot for and/or collaborate with so many awesome brands, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next year brings. I want to extend a special thank you to Sony Alpha, Discovery Channel, Six Senses Resort Laamu, the Maldives Underwater Initiative, Explore Canada, GoPro, PADI (Professional Association of Dive Instructors), Atlantis Dive Resorts, Dive Tutukaka, Aggressor Liveaboards, Evolution Malapascua, ScubaPro, Cressi, DUI, and everyone else who made it such a memorable year.

Where was Jay this year?

The year kicked off with hosting Dive Ninja Expeditions’ annual ‘Ninja New Year’s trip‘ to Socorro and the Revillagigedo Archipelago. Definitely couldn’t ask for a better way to start the year than diving with so many oceanic manta rays while teaching a great group of guests about manta rays, sharks, and photo identification research. However, after that, I was in full moving mode, packing up my house and donating most of what I had accumulated over the past nine years in Baja to prepare for my departure from Mexico. By mid-February, I was back on the road with essentially back-to-back projects in Dominica, New Zealand, the Bahamas, the Maldives, and the Philippines. Then it was off to the Scuba Show in Los Angeles before heading back to Baja to teach at the Above & Below: Mobula Rays & Dark Skies photography workshop with my good friend and epic photographer, Stan Moniz.

After a whirlwind first half of the year, it was time to switch gears and head to Utah to spend a couple of months exploring the mountain west region of the US, shooting nightscapes, adventure travel, and outdoor recreation. Then it was back to the Bahamas for an epic brand shoot with GoPro, PADI, and Aggressor Liveaboards before heading up to the Canadian Rockies! Autumn kicked off with attending the awesome Nightscaper Conference put together by the incredible humans at National Parks At Night in beautiful Kanab, Utah. Then, after exploring the high deserts and mountains of the American Southwest, it was time to hit the road again, with projects in Egypt, the Philippines, and Raja Ampat, Indonesia, to finish up the year. Phew!

Can’t wait to see what next year brings! See you in 2025, fam!

This week, I kicked off the new ‘Ask a Pro Photographer‘ column series at Scuba Diving Magazine. We’ve been building this project for a few months now, so I am super excited to be able to talk about it finally! If you haven’t seen the launch video yet, check it out on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram. Every month, we’ll be holding a session on Scuba Diving Magazine’s social media to answer your questions about photography, storytelling, and cinematography. If you want composition tips, to learn about camera gear, or even if you just want to finally put to rest if pineapple belongs on pizza – just send in your questions by commenting on the posts or visiting this link. Each month, we will pick our favorite question to answer properly in a full-length article on ScubaDiving.com

For the first article, I answered a question from Kristin, Scuba Diving Magazine’s master content ninja, on one of my all-time favorite tips for getting the best shots underwater. You can check out the full article right here on their website, free of charge. We’ve already seen a bunch of great questions coming in and have been answering them on Instagram and Facebook stories. I can’t wait to see what other questions you ninjas come up with!

My new article on Sony Alpha Universe just dropped! Their ‘What’s In My Bag’ series takes a look inside the camera bags of leading photographers to find out how they pack for adventure. It’s an awesome way to see “the cameras & lenses they rely on to capture stunning photos, dramatic videos and the experiences of a lifetime around the world.”  I was super stoked to be invited to participate in the series and dive into what I carry for different shoots. As a hybrid shooter working underwater, topside, and in the sky, packing can be a bit of a mission, to say the least! The article looks at my go-to cameras and lenses as well as the other gear I can’t live without. It also features a collection of some of my shots from recent projects. Head over to Sony Alpha Universe to check out the article, and let me know your thoughts.

In the coming weeks, I will be posting an article here on the blog about how I pack for an upcoming commercial shoot for PADI and Fiji Tourism. Keep an eye out for it if you struggle with packing for trips. If you’d like to check out more info on what I am shooting right now, check out this article.

As many of you know, I love donating photos to help out conservation organizations & research centers that are putting in the hard work every day to help preserve and protect our planet. Recently, I’ve been linking up with the fantastic humans behind Shark Angels to support their incredible work with some shark photos. Their new Adopt a Whale Shark fact cards have just come back from the printer, and they look AWESOME! The card features one of my shots of a juvenile whale shark from La Paz in Baja California Sur, Mexico. In the next few weeks, they will also be releasing the new Great Hammerhead Adopt a Shark fact card, which features a shot of one of Bimini’s famous winter residents. Let’s see if my shark lovers out there can guess who it is!

Shark Angels’ Adopt a Shark program helps support efforts to raise awareness of critical issues facing sharks and protect these and other threatened species. It’s a great way to get involved and help support the preservation of these beautiful creatures. Your Adopt a Shark donation not only helps sharks but comes with a bunch of fun stuff to go with it. I’m not going to lie, I love their shark plushies!

Shark Angels came together in 2007 with an idea to re-invent how the world approaches shark conservation. Their positive and contagiously fun approach is a breath of fresh air in an industry that normally can feel a bit filled with doom and gloom. Since their inception, Shark Angels’ outreach programs have clocked over 7,000 hours of shark education – with most of those hours going to people who would otherwise never have the opportunity to receive it. They’re also heavily focused on driving positive shark media around the world and have over 150 hours of global news & media coverage to their credit. And that’s just the beginning. Head over to www.SharkAngels.org to adopt your shark today and learn more about these remarkable humans working to change how the world views our finned friends.

What is Shark Angels?

Shark Angels came together in 2007 with an idea to re-invent how the world approaches shark conservation. Their positive and contagiously fun approach is a breath of fresh air in an industry that generally can feel a bit filled with doom and gloom. Since their inception, Shark Angels’ outreach programs have clocked over 7,000 hours of shark education – with most of those hours going to people who would otherwise never have the opportunity to receive it. They’re also heavily focused on driving positive shark media around the world and have over 150 hours of global news & media coverage to their credit. And that’s just the beginning. Head over to www.SharkAngels.org to adopt your shark today and learn more about these remarkable humans working to change how the world views our finned friends.

I am ecstatic to share a truly awesome announcement with you today, ninjas! Recently, I was surprised by some incredible news that brightened my day. A selection of my photographs has been chosen for the Mexican National Lottery! As you may know, I donated numerous images last year to support the vital work carried out by CONANP (Mexico’s National Park Service). These images have been used in various platforms & media to showcase the incredible beauty and artistry found underwater in Los Cabos and Baja California Sur. However, I had yet to learn that they were also submitted for a new program with the Mexican National Lottery. The program aims to highlight Mexico’s natural beauty through a unique series of lottery tickets featuring the work of a few talented photographers from around the country. It brings me immense joy to know that my images were chosen for a special series of World Ocean’s Day lottery tickets that would be sold throughout the country. Needless to say, I am absolutely thrilled with this incredible news!

Massive thanks to all our friends at CONANP in Los Cabos and Baja California Sur for this extraordinary surprise. Thank you for always supporting my work in Baja and believing in my photography enough to submit it for this program. But even more so, thank you for all your hard work helping to protect and preserve the natural beauty of this magical peninsula we call Baja.

Hot off the press! Dive Travel Adventures Issue 8 has just come out, and it looks fantastic! This month’s issue features some of my photos alongside a feature article & travel guide I wrote about diving Mexico’s famed Revillagigedo Archipelago, better known to most as Socorro. These remarkable islands are one of my favorite places in the world for scuba and rebreather diving. So much so that at Dive Ninja, we have been running trips every year to take our guests to visit them since we first opened our doors!  The manta encounters are mind-blowing, to say the very least. But I don’t want to give too much away, so go check out the article and let me know what you think. You can check out the digital version of the magazine free of charge online by clicking here. But if you can get your hands on a print copy, Dive Travel Adventures is a beautifully printed magazine to add to your collection. Make sure also to check out my Socorro & the Revillagigedo dive guide for tips on when to go, what to pack, and what camera gear to bring to get the best shots.

Want to check out Socorro for yourself? Join me every January for a special trip with Dive Ninja Expeditions to start off the new year with unforgettable shark and manta encounters! You can learn more about the Socorro trips here and even add on a one-on-one photography workshop with yours truly, too. You can also check

Super stoked to announce that a great hammerhead photo of mine was chosen for the PADI AWARE 30 Years of Conservation certification card design. Any diver that takes a PADI certification course in 2023 or wants to get a new print of their certification card can choose this special design by making a small donation to help the incredible conservation work AWARE is doing to protect our oceans. Check out the video below to see when I first received the news that they chose my great hammerhead photo, or visit this link to learn more about the story behind the shot and why that specific shark is so special. And if you get one of them share it on Instagram or Facebook and tag me! Would love to see the cards out in the wild!

Every year voting takes place at PADI to sort through 100s of photos to see which shots will become the next special edition certification cards to support AWARE. When I first started learning photography a good friend and mentor of mine just had his photos chosen to be on a PADI card. It was super awesome to see, and all I kept thinking was one day I hope that I’m going to be that good! So having this come full circle 6 years later is just really incredible. But what makes it even more special is the shot is of one of my favorite animals and the first creature to ever spark my interest in the ocean, a Great Hammerhead shark. The shot was taken in Bimini, the Bahamas while leading Dive Ninja Expeditions‘  special Shark Science trip with Bimini Shark Lab and Neal Watson’s Bimini Scuba Center.  Bimini Biological Field Station, better known as Shark Lab, has been at the forefront of shark research and conservation for decades. They’re a remarkable team made up of really passionate humans doing amazing work. I highly recommend checking them out and if you can, go adopt a shark to help them continue doing great research and conservation.

Much love ninjas!

Note: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are my own. This post might contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. I would never recommend a product I have not personally tested and loved. 

Back in February this year I upgraded from the Sony Alpha A7R IV to the Sony Alpha 1 with Nauticam’s NA-A1 housing and have been putting them through the wringer ever since. It has been my go to camera rig for both commercial and recreational shoots using it on everything from astrophotography to underwater photography & cinematography, landscapes, topside wildlife, and the list just goes on and on. And when I say putting it through the wringer, I’m not lying. I’ve had them in over 10 countries, on hundreds of dives in different environments, plus hiking, long nights shooting the milky way, getting splashed with salt water in rough seas, whale watching, photographing the aurora borealis, and so much more. I even shot the Sony Alpha 1 in a sandstorm.  So when my friends over at Dive Photo Guide asked if I could write a review on the Sony Alpha 1 and Nauticam NA-A1 housing I was pretty confident I could give a solid review based on actual real world experience with the camera system. It’s one of the most in-depth camera reviews I’ve ever written so it is a bit long, but packed with lots of info, real world shots, and even a 3 minute video of unedited underwater video footage from Los Cabos, Mexico and The Visayas, Philippines – so you can see the true quality of video the Sony Alpha 1 produces without color grading or editing.

Here’s a little sneak peak from the Sony Alpha 1 Review to get you started:
“Among the less headline-grabbing specs, but extremely consequential for underwater photographers, is the A1’s “world’s fastest” flash sync speed of 1/400s—twice as fast as most other full-frame mirrorless cameras, which cannot sync beyond 1/200s. When shooting fast action with strobes, this ultra-high sync speed allows you to minimize ambient light motion blur for a crisp, well-defined subject. When shooting in shallow, bright ambient light situations, a shutter speed of 1/400s makes your strobe power count for more when balancing natural and artificial light for big reef scenes, allows you to achieve sunbursts with well-defined rays more easily, and makes it possible to shoot macro with wider apertures for creamy bokeh backgrounds.”

The full Sony Alpha 1 & Nauticam NA-A1 housing review article is available free of charge on the Dive Photo Guide website. Check it out when you have a second and let me know what you think. Definitely would love to hear your feedback on the article and your experiences with the Sony Alpha 1 or Nauticam NA-A1 housing. If you want to check out some more awesome underwater content content I’ve contributed to Dive Photo Guide click here for a full list.

Before I wrap up I want to send a massive thank you to Backscatter Underwater Photo & Video for helping me with this article and always supporting my work. Backscatter is hands down the best underwater camera shop in the world and where I purchase all of my underwater gear. Their team is not only highly knowledgable, but also incredibly helpful and fun to work with. They honestly go above & beyond every time. Plus they shoot everything they sell, so there is always someone that has experience with whatever piece of gear you might be looking for. Additionally a big thank you to Dive Ninja Expeditions and Aggressor Liveaboards for destination & location support on this article.

About Dive Photo Guide:

DivePhotoGuide.com is an amazing underwater photography &  videography online resource, as well as an award-winning website that was created for photographers and videographers of all levels. Their content spans multiple topics covering underwater photography technique guides, gear reviews, travel & destination guides, equipment guides, photo galleries, daily news, competitions, and so much more. And if that wasn’t enough, they also boast an active community of over 50,000 underwater photographers and videographers from around the globe.